[SoScorpio]

Hello everyone. I had trouble deciding where to post this, because my problems are so all over the place, it's not just anxiety or depression, I don't even know what it is. But looking at it practically, anxiety seems to be the one that causes me the most practical problems. "Practical" problems being the ones that make me do or say things that could get me fired and that stop me from going out and living my life. The other type of problems just make me feel like crap, which I'm pretty much used to.
Anyway I've had pretty bad depression for the past couple weeks, especially the last two days. Why is another story you can find here. But right now the only thing I think could possibly make me feel better is doing something constructive about it. And since I'm at work I can't call my insurance company to find therapists in my network, or make appointments. And in any case I'm not entirely sure what kind of therapy I need, so I thought I should focus on that before I make the call. So I was looking for some advice on that.
I know I can get really long-winded, I'll try to keep this shorter. I've compiled any relevant information I can think of.

First off, diagnoses: I've been actually diagnosed with social anxiety and GAD, depression, and OCPD.
Diagnoses I think may fit my symptoms, but need to ask a professional about: PTSD, ADD, and dissociative states. I don't think I have DID, but I do think it's possible something else is causing me to dissociate.

And now the fun part... symptoms.

• This is the big one: I have a really hard time talking to customers at work. In a typical encounter, I feel like I have to steel myself when they walk in the door. I also feel like I'm putting on a mask, like I'm not myself anymore, because I have to do and say things that just aren't in my character. But in situations where a customer is angry, I completely lose it. My heart races, my palms sweat, my chest tingles, and my mind either goes completely blank or fills with racing thoughts, mostly "What-do-I-do-What-do-I-do-What-do-I-do???"
• I have trouble taking responsibility for things I've done. I know I did it, and I know I had a choice, it's just on some level I always think that people should forgive me because of the mitigating circumstances. But somehow "forgive" turns into "not think I did anything wrong in the first place".
• Insomnia - trouble getting to sleep, sometimes waking in the night.
• Morning depression, sometimes so bad I cry in the shower
• Racing thoughts that are hard to identify or hold onto, even when not under stress
• I have trouble remembering conversations. It's like my mind just starts tuning people out, I mean to pay attention but get distracted by something I thought of when they said something, or something in my environment.
• Difficulty making decisions; ordering food is harder than it should be, decisions like altering my work schedule or making appointments I find almost impossible.
• Forgetting important things I'm told, if they go against my current routine or belief. For example, a new process at work, I'll just completely forget to do, if I've been doing it another way for a long time.
• Feeling disconnected from body or locked in head; clumsiness
• Cheek biting/skin picking
• Having conversations in my head, usually things I want to say or conversations that have happened that I could have handled better. Sometimes though they're completely pointless, I'll be reading a book, get up to go to the bathroom, and the last bit of dialogue I read will start playing in my head, and I'll start making up responses to it, even if I've read the book so many times I already know what the other person says.
• Feel like I can't trust myself to make decisions anymore
• This one I'm not convinced of, but my boyfriend sometimes says I told him something that I don't remember saying. Stuff I know we talked about, a conversation I remember having, but particular statements that I don't recall making in that conversation.
• I don't know what's normal anymore. I could have hundreds more symptoms, I just don't know. I don't know how to differentiate between stresses and problems that normal people have, and abnormal problems.
• Extreme forgetfulness. This one is relatively new, way beyond the forgetfulness I've already described. It's so bad I even forgot to mention it, when I meant to present it as one of the things that's scaring me the most. I forgot to check my bank account for almost two weeks, and overdrafted my account horribly. This morning I forgot to check that the bus I was getting on was the right one, I just assumed it was because of the time and place. The other day I almost sent a comforter at work to the cleaning plant without even invoicing it. This is worse than it's ever been.
• This last one doesn't really cause me problems, but I wonder if it could point to underlying problems. When people around me are yelling, arguing, or otherwise being aggressive, even if it's not directed at me, I tense up. Usually I just try to ignore it. I feel like I can't look at these people though, or they'll become aggressive with me. But the other day I had a really exaggerated response. I was on the bus and a passenger started yelling at the driver, and when he stopped I realized I was hunched over double, like I was trying to curl into a ball. I vaguely felt my muscles move, but I didn't tell them to. I find this really odd because I didn't have a lot of violence in my childhood or anything.

Now, I've done a little research myself, and come up with a few types of therapy I've never tried that sound like they'd help me.
I'd love any opinions on these, or other suggestions.

Dialectical behavior therapy.
To borrow from this site's overview: "The theory behind the approach is that some people are prone to react in a more intense and out-of-the-ordinary manner toward certain emotional situations, primarily those found in romantic, family and friend relationships."
Now the only thing is, the emotional situations I overreact to are almost always the stranger/acquaintance ones. I'm much more comfortable with my SO and family, obviously. I don't have friends. But I suppose I do overreact with loved ones sometimes. I just don't know if it's abnormal. It's usually when I'm already feeling depressed or anxious. Sometimes if I talk on the phone with my boyfriend at work, and he doesn't say "I love you" at the end, I feel like crying.

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.
This one I'm not so sure about. It seems that it would work for me if my anxieties and other problems stem from some trauma. But that's a question I haven't answered yet. If they're really caused by things in my head that were never triggered by something that happened to me, I don't know if it will work.

Biofeedback.
This one sounds promising. I keep trying to explain to people that I can't control myself when a customer is speaking angrily. I can't calm myself down, at least not in the time I have to work with, I can't stop myself from being anxious in the first place. If this therapy could help me do that, that would be amazing.

Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy.
Apparently focuses on disproving irrational beliefs that cause you to act a certain way. Here's the core irrational beliefs that this site lists: Demandingness or Absolutism, Demand for Love and Approval, Demand for Success or Achievement, Demand for Comfort. And the irrational beliefs/feelings that these core beliefs lead to: Awfulization, Low Frustration Tolerance, and Global-Rating.
I have every single one of these, though less prominently the Absolutism and Global-Rating. I've always been a comfort-seeker, frequently losing myself in books, video games, movies and shows, food, and substances. Often the only thing that makes my work day bearable is thinking about taking my lunch break, and letting my senses be occupied with the taste and sensation and nothing else. I seem to need approval from people I don't even really care about. I just can't stand the thought of someone being mad at me. And there it is, "can't stand", a sign that I have Low Frustration Tolerance. After reading this, I realized I think and say things like that all the time.

Gestalt Therapy.
"which looks at the unity of mind and body and the need to integrate thought and action. The focus is becoming fully aware of yourself and accepting responsibility for your own behavior."
I'm a little leery of it because it's a humanistic approach apparently, which is all I've ever tried, and has never done much for me besides catharsis. I think I *do* need to focus on the pathological. On the other hand, I do feel like my mind and body don't communicate like they should. Everything from running into walls, to doing and saying things to please people, when in my head I'm thinking "why should I care?" I definitely have issues with awareness. I have no idea how long I've been writing this post, for example. Nor how long it is, though I'm sensing, very long. And I do have trouble accepting responsibility sometimes, and it may very well be because I don't feel like it was "me" that did it; it was circumstances, and what this person said and did, and what that did to my emotional state, etc etc etc.

So those are my ideas.

This turned out way longer than I meant again, sorry. I just can't help giving as many details as possible. I know most of what's going on in my head, and I can't figure out what to do, so how can anyone else help me if I don't make myself very clear?
Kudos if you made it through all that...
Any thoughts appreciated.

[Mookster]

I would probably start with someone that works with DBT or CBT and see what of the others listed above they might recommend after talking with you for a while.

Hope this helps you.

I would leave that to a therapist to assess you and make that decision. My gut agrees with the above poster about Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) or Cognative Behaviour Therapy (CBT). These are centered around dealing with core beliefs and negative automatic thoughts. To my understanding, CBT is more used for anxiety, OCD, etc while DBT is more for personality disorders.